The Third Age

by Bruce Lenman

Iseabail and I met through the publishing industry in 1986. Oddly enough I had published with Europa, the firm that gave her first job in publishing as an Editorial Assistant in 1965 – 66, but we had not come in contact there. We met much later through what was then one of the liveliest rising publishing houses in Scotland – Richard Drew. Richard, the eponymous proprietor of the business, had an agreement with the National Trust for Scotland to produce a small, heavily illustrated book which would act as both a history of the Jacobite risings and a guide to the many important sites in the Trust's care. I remember Richard saying to me "and I'll give you the best freelance editor in Scotland". That was Iseabail. I shall always be grateful to Richard for two things: one is that he is one of the few publishers I have met who were entirely fair, indeed generous to his authors. You could actually trust Richard to do the honourable thing. The other was Iseabail.

The commission turned out to be an unexpected nightmare, mainly because of the behaviour of the Trust. I will not go in to details, but by the time we got through all the difficulties, I knew the person I was working with. She was not only a first-rate editor but also a wonderfully kind, gentle, patient person. She was also an excellent cook.

Ish had, as Iain explained, very extensive experience with Chambers and Collins on reference works, especially dictionaries. I would add that she was both innovative and important in that field. Later I went with her to Cambridge, where I have a connection with St John's College, and met the Scottish don who had worked with her on the big Spanish Dictionary which can fairly be described as the first ‘modern' dictionary of its kind, not just listing words but giving extensive examples of how they were idiomatically used. Typically, she made lifelong friends of people she worked with. Gabby Holden has written me a letter in which she tells me that her lifelong friendship with Iseabail started when Ish was editing a big Collins French dictionary from Glasgow and came to see her in Edinburgh (Gabby lives in 1 Scotland Street) about her contribution – the letter ‘e'. When Ish later went to work for the Scottish National Dictionary Association, she was much influenced by her boss, that very distinguished lexicographer Jack Aitken. Typically she made friends not just with him but also with his lovely family. His widow, the irrepressible Chandra, was later briefly an undergraduate pupil of mine in St. Andrews University. I was out of my depth linguistically with Ish who could work in six languages, and who was lexicographically erudite. My contributions were marginal – I was her Spanish spokesperson and when reading inscriptions on tombs, especially in St Peter's basilica in Rome, my passable church Latin was needed.

Iseabail, like all dictionary compilers, suffered from a déformation de métier, in the sense that she thought everything could be said in a maximum of four or five lines and was uncomfortable with any more. She also lacked confidence, not least because she had been brutally handled more than once in her various careers. Gentle people attract bullies. In later years, with much greater self confidence, she blossomed as an author and editor, ranging from an excellent encyclopedia of Scotland to something close to her cook's heart – an edition of the first published Scots cookery book – Mrs McLintock's recipes for cookery and pastry work. Then there was the increasing volume of technical publication in her lexicographical field. Though I was never in any doubt that Gaelic was closest to her heart, she became a considerable authority on contemporary Lowland Scots and when she discovered I could be an informant on my native Buchan Doric, I went up a peg in her estimation. Even more impressed was she to discover that two of my old school classmates from Aberdeen Grammar School, Stephen Paccitti and Doug Kynoch had been recipients of the annual Silver Tassie for Scots poetry and prose respectively. Ish was latterly a very well-published person, as well as a very public-spirited one, though I suspect that she needed the benign support of a very civilized senior civil servant to get her richly deserved MBE, a decoration which, despite its anachronistic title, does, especially in its lower ranks recognise some very deserving people whose service to society goes otherwise unrecognised.

I was scheduled to address the Anglo-American conference that week so I suggested to her that she should elect to receive it in Buckingham Palace as part of a short holiday, but no. Ish was for Holyrood, even if it meant that I fly up and then fly down the same day. She was, of course, absolutely right. It was a hundred times better. She had all her friends in support. She wore a splendid new tartan dress and I pre-ordered champagne with lunch in one of the bars in Edinburgh Airport. I still recall the beaming faces of Ish and Pauline as I ran for my plane. Though we had lots of happy days, especially when we travelled together, that memory stands out.

For at least three years, I and other people had been worried at the obvious decline in Iseabail's health. Though an indomitable walker, who loved the hills, she had never been robust and she grew frailer and frailer. She always rested in bed for part of the afternoon and this became an imperative. Her spine started to collapse. She needed much help with her beloved cooking. The last five days before she reluctantly went back to Edinburgh from Stirling to keep a vitally-needed medical appointment were downright frightening. She made it to Scotland St. only, then she collapsed with a stroke before slipping away from us despite wonderful care in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, for which we are most grateful. Hers was a giving life. She was modest, friendly to all and sacrificially charitable to good causes despite being poor as a church mouse (publishing is an industry in which people are employed but not gainfully). She was a deeply patriotic Scot without the least flicker of chauvinism. When we recall St Paul's sermon on the centrality of ‘charity' in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, usually in the noble words of the 1611 Authorised Version we know that ‘Charity' there translates St. Jerome's ‘caritas' in the Vulgate and St Paul's ‘agape' in Greek. All three mean ‘love'. Iseabail was a loving person but perhaps more significant still, at the core of her being she was possessed by an all-encompassing, self-transcending kindness beyond anyone I have ever met. We were all privileged to know this extraordinary lady. She will rest in peace and in our hearts.